Jan 21, 2008 6:40 pm US/Eastern
Hundreds Gather At King's Atlanta Church
ATLANTA (CBS News) ―
Hundreds crowded Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday for the U.S. holiday that celebrates the slain civil rights leader and his legacy.
"We would be remiss if we did not commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., a champion of peace in a time of war," said Isaac Newton Farris Jr., a nephew of King.
King was assassinated at age 39 on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He would have turned 79 this year.
Farris urged diplomacy, economic incentives and other nonviolent efforts "as an alternative to military intervention to end the war in Iraq."
Former President Bill Clinton, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin were among the dignitaries attending the ceremony.
The holiday has been observed at Ebenezer Baptist Church - where King preached from 1960 until 1968 - every year since his death.
Clinton told the congregation that King "made the beloved community possible."
"He freed us all to fight the civil rights battle, to fight the poverty battle, to fight all these battles and do it together," Clinton said. "He made a place at the table for all of us."
Clinton noted the diverse presidential race, including his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is running to be the first female U.S. president. Republican Mitt Romney is Mormon, Barack Obama is black, and Mike Huckabee is a former Baptist preacher.
"How cool is it? You know, we've all these different people seeking the presidency," he said. "And guess what? It's all possible because of Martin Luther King's vision of the beloved community."
When Dr. King delivered the immortal "I Have A Dream" speech in 1963, there were just 300 elected black politicians, reports CBS News national correspondent Byron Pitts. Today, there are 9,500 elected African-American politicians.
Former senator John Edwards, one of three Democratic presidential candidates who spoke at today's rally, said Dr. King's example of speaking out against intolerance was just as vital today.
"It is time to not remain unsilent in this war on Iraq, and bring our men and woman home from Iraq," he said. "We can no longer stand silent - it is a betrayal to 37,000,000 people waking up in America with poverty. I did a poverty tour in Marks, Miss., an island of poverty
surrounded by a sea of affluence. We have islands of poverty all over this country. We must turn the corner of shame into a corridor of hope and opportunity for the people of South Carolina."
Senator Hillary Clinton talked about how Dr. King inspired not only Amercians "but people around the world." She recalled how King touched her life and how "we are bound to each other's freedom," and "pledged that we will all finish the work Dr. King began."
"Dr. King didn't back down from the hard work and neither can we. He followed the light of his conscience in the darkest hour and so can we."
In his speech Senator Barack Obama recalled Dr. King's words "Unity is the great need of the hour." The Senator told the crowd that urgency was needed to battle "the moral deficit in America."
"King inspired with words not of anger but of urgency that speaks to us today. Unity is the great need of the hour. In South Carolina, unity is the great need of this hour, not because it sounds nice or makes us feel good but because it's the only way for us to overcome, and the only
way to get rid of the great deficit. Not trade, not new plans, I'm talking about the moral deficit in America."
Also Monday, President George W. Bush hailed King as a towering figure and called on Americans to honor his legacy by showing compassion to those in need.
"It's fitting that we honor his service and his courage and his vision," Bush said during a visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library with first lady Laura Bush.
The president said that the federal holiday in King's memory is "an opportunity to renew our deep desire for America to be a land of promise to everybody."
The King holiday holds a new political significance this week because it falls closer to presidential primary elections than in past years, since many states moved up their balloting.
South Carolina, which has a large black electorate in the Democratic primary, votes on Jan. 26. And King's home state, Georgia, will vote on Feb. 5, along with California, New York and 22 other states.
King's actual birthday is Jan. 15, but the federal holiday is observed on the third Monday in January. It has been a national holiday since 1986.
His widow, Coretta Scott King, worked for more than a decade to establish her husband's birthday as a federal holiday. She died in 2006 at age 78.
But there were other observances of the holiday as well.
In the small town of Jena, Louisiana, about 50 demonstrators began assembling, responding to a call from a Mississippi segregationist, for what was billed as a protest against the holiday.
A Jena police officer (see left) checked two shotguns in the back of David Duprey's pickup truck near the LaSalle Parish Courthouse in Jena today, to make sure they were unloaded.
The anti-Martin Luther King Day protest drew about 50 participants - and about 100 counter-demonstrators.
There was at least one arrest when about six black counter-protesters gathered in a semicircle around a podium that had been set up in front of the LaSalle Parish Courthouse by Richard Barrett, leader of the self-described "pro-majority" Nationalist Movement of Learned, Mississippi.
The town has been in the news since six black teens were prosecuted for allegedly beating a white teen, following months of racial tensions at their school. The prosecution sparked a mass protest that drew 20,000 people and reminded many of the U.S. civil rights movement.
And in King of Prussia, Pa., a demonstration jointly commemorated Dr. King's testament to nonviolence and protested the war in Iraq, as activists stood at the entrance to Lockheed Martin, which makes weapons systems. Several protestors were escorted by officers to a police van.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
